1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of manufacturing a ceramic electronic component, and, in particular, to a method of manufacturing a multilayer ceramic electronic component includes inner electrode layers are stacked with ceramic layers interposed therebetween.
2. Description of the Related Art
A well-known method of manufacturing a multilayer ceramic capacitor, which is a typical example of a multilayer ceramic electronic component, includes a step of forming a mother laminate in which inner electrode layers are stacked with ceramic layers interposed therebetween, a step of pressing the mother laminate, and a step of cutting the mother laminate into individual chips (ceramic capacitor elements).
However, this method has the following problem. In the step of pressing the mother laminate, deformation of the inner electrode layers may occur. Therefore, when the mother laminate is cut into individual chips, gaps between the peripheries, excluding extended portions, of the internal electrode layers and side surfaces or end surfaces of the chips may become insufficient. As a result, reliability in insulation from the outside may decrease.
To address the problem, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-135068 describes the following method of manufacturing a multilayer ceramic electronic component.
That is, as shown in FIGS. 2 to 4 and described in paragraphs [0016] to [0024] of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-135068, the method includes placing a mother block on an expandable film, cutting the mother block into a plurality of cut blocks before pressing the mother block, expanding the expandable film in an in-plane direction thereof to form gaps between the cut blocks, filling the gaps with a filler that is a mixture of powder and liquid, evaporating the liquid to solidify the filler, pressing the cut blocks together with the filler, and removing the filler to obtain the cut blocks, which are raw chips.
It is described that, by using this method, the occurrence of undesirable deformation of the mother block and the occurrence of displacement and deformation of the inner electrode layers in the pressing step can be suppressed or prevented.
However, with the method of manufacturing a multilayer ceramic electronic component described in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 10-135068, if the filler remains between the cut blocks (chips), the filler may be diffused in the cut blocks when firing the cut blocks, and therefore the electric characteristics and the reliability of the multilayer ceramic electronic component may be negatively affected.
Moreover, due to the presence of the filler, even a ceramic material included in the chips may be melted, and the electric characteristics and the reliability of the multilayer ceramic electronic component may be impaired.